Baltimore Blues Read Online Free PDF Page A

downtown. She stowed the bike in her trunk and hurried back to Pratt Street.
    Luckily Ava was moving slowly, sauntering along Pratt. The street was congested, but it was still early for many people to be walking. Tess stopped and started her way along Pratt, trying to measure her stride against Ava’s more leisurely progress. Her hair still damp from a quick shower at the boat house, she felt particularly conspicuous on the almost empty sidewalk.
    Ava wasn’t the type to wear running shoes and white socks beneath her trim little suit. She glided along on suede pumps with three-inch heels and ankle straps, looking straight ahead, oblivious to the bright morning, the breathtaking view of the harbor to her left, the dark hulk of the USS Constellation . Tess could have trailed her on a tricycle, ringing a metal bell, and Ava would not have noticed. She spared glances only for expensive cars and well-dressed men. Her head would turn, just barely, when she saw one with the other, giving Tess a glimpse of a familiar profile. Half the women in Baltimore had the same profile, thanks to a certain surgeon.
    Despite her perfect nose Ava did not look like a real lawyer to Tess, but like a fashion magazine’s idea of a lawyer, an important distinction. Her glossy black hair was curly and loose, unbound by a headband or tortoiseshell clips. Her pearl gray skirt was short and snug, her crimson blouse silk and low cut. Her pumps, which matched the blouse, would have been at home just four blocks north along the strip of nude bars and porno stores known as the Block. And Ava’s briefcase, shiny black leather that looked softer than Tess’s pillow, swung too loosely in her hand, as if it held nothing more than a mascara wand and lipstick.
    Doubtful, Tess reminded herself. As a young associate at O’Neal, O’Connor and O’Neill, Ava would be loaded down with work, paper-intensive, nonglamorous work. But who needed glamour when you started at $80,000 a year? Nice work if you can get it , Tess hummed as Ava disappeared into the Lambrecht Building, the mirrored skyscraper that housed the Triple O. Its reflective surface made entering the building look like a magic trick: Now you see her, now you don’t. Tess waited a few seconds, then circled the block, noting the building’s rear exit along the alley. It also had a coffee shop with a separate entrance. There was no spot from which she could clearly see all the doors. And if Ava left in someone’s car from the underground garage on the east side of the building, Tess would be clueless.
    How could she be otherwise? Tess had never followedanyone in her life. She had not been that kind of reporter. As a general assignments writer she had written about people more likely to stalk her, so desperate were they for publicity. She had written about street corner evangelists, precocious premed students, even LBJ’s podiatrist, now retired to Arbutus. (“Hard-working feet, but more delicate looking than you might think,” the podiatrist had told her.)
    She walked back to the front of the building and found a bench affording an unobstructed view of the front door and the intersection of Pratt and Howard. A homeless woman eyed her suspiciously.
    “Do you know the power of the mind?” the toothless woman asked Tess.
    “Yes,” Tess replied, pulling a well-worn copy of Love’s Lonely Counterfeit out of her battered leather knapsack, then rummaging for her Walkman.
    The woman scooted a little closer to her. It was almost eighty degrees and, although the morning haze was beginning to burn off, Tess could tell it was going to be another sticky day. Yet the woman wore a gray wool cardigan over a gingham-checked housedress, thick crew socks, and heavy hiking shoes. She smelled of cigarettes, sweat, and cheap wine. Beneath it all Tess picked up a fainter, familiar scent. Lily of the valley perfume. Her grandmother, Momma Weinstein, wore it.
    “Do I scare you?” the old woman asked hopefully.
    “No.